Recently in Windsor Category

Everyone is predicting a tough time for school systems in the upcoming year as municipalities and the state clamp down on spending. Among the many things this means for children, teachers and parents is that anything not directly related to the classroom may or may not get any funding. That includes upgrading playgrounds, even though everyone agrees that getting outside for recess is a good thing for children. In Windsor, it has fallen to the parent-teacher association at Clover Street School to come up with the money for a new playground there and recently I received an appeal for help from the PTA.

The PTA at Clover Street School is looking to build a brand new playground there. The old one is mostly made out of wood and, being 15 years old, is nearing the end of its useful life, said Craig McAdams, a PTA member. He said the playground also gets very wet when it rains and is poorly drained. So a heavy rain, like what we saw on Christmas Eve, can turn the playground into a mud bath and when that happens students have their recess in the school's parking lot. I don't know about you, but a parking lot is not my idea of a great place to play. The plan is to build the new playground where it won't get flooded and where there is better drainage. In addition, the new playground is planned to be handicapped-accessible.

McAdams said the estimate for how much this project will cost is about $75,000. Right now, the PTA has about $30,000. That includes money raised with help from the Windsor Jaycees' annual Christmas tree sale. Then there was a $15,000 grant earlier this year from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and Boundless Playgrounds, the Bloomfield-based non-profit organization that promotes handicapped-accessible playgrounds. Clover Street School was one of six schools in the region that are getting support for building these playgrounds, here's the announcement of the grants. McAdams said the town is helping with engineering work and getting grants but can't give any money.

The only problem is that there is a definite deadline for getting started. McAdams said the grant the PTA received requires that work be done by the end of 2009. With that in mind, the group hopes it raises enough money to get started this summer. McAdams said the PTA may build the new playground in stages rather than all at once.

McAdams said the PTA is planning a number of fundraisers later this year, including one at the Travelers Championship golf tournament this summer. Individual donations are also accepted, send a check payable to the "Clover Street PTA" and sent it to the Clover Street School, 57 Clover St., Windsor, Ct. 06095. The PTA also has an email newsletter on its playground project, which you can subscribe to by sending an email to mcmaru@sbcglobal.net. Here's the latest issue below, some of the information has been updated since it was put out but it still has a lot of background on the project.

Clover Street School

Boundless Playground

Project

Playground Committee
Update

December 2008

Dear
Ken,

The Clover Street School
PTA has launched an initiative to replace outdated playground equipment with a
new Boundless Playground with elements accessible to all children. School
administrators, teachers, staff, parents and students have been hard at work
raising funds to help pay for the new playground equipment. But we have quite a
ways to go and we need your help, as well as the assistance of the entire
community to make this project successful. Please consider giving of your time
and energy to help us reach our goal.

Bring Your Pennies

Clover parents Craig McAdams and Jim Churchill moved the large penny box
for Clover Playground to L.P. Wilson Recreation Center. It was originally built
for use at Poquonock School. The top can collect 10,000 pennies that can be
dumped into the bottom at one time for dramatic impact. Mr. Governor Brown met
us there and entered the first pennies! Craig painted it green in his garage
this fall. We hope to decorate the penny box soon possibly with gold accents
and the Clover cougar. See the picture of Governor Brown standing in front of
the penny box with Clover parent Jim Churchill. Governor Brown has generously
offered to keep an eye on the box for us and to help encourage people to bring
in their pennies when attending events at L.P. Wilson Recreation Center. If
there are any questions about the penny box please contact Liz McAuliffe at
298-8557. Thank you Governor! We love saying
that.

Boundless Playgrounds® Grant

Boundless Playgrounds announced
in June six communities that will receive catalyst funding to build inclusive
playgrounds for children of all abilities in underserved areas of Greater
Hartford.

On Saturday, December 13th volunteers from Clover Street assisted the Windsor Jaycees in their annual
Christmas tree sale. A portion of the proceeds from the day's sales was donated
to the playground project. A bake sale was held at the same time and brought
additional proceeds to the project.

We urge other community organizations to consider sponsoring a fundraiser
for this important community project.

Project
Update

The Clover Street PTA and its Playground Committee has been busy laying the
groundwork for a successful project. Teachers and students have participated in
numerous fundraisers including bake sales and penny drives. We have already
raised an impressive $12,000 toward the project. Students participated in a
unique "Dreaming and Design Party" to help determine what play elements the
students woiuld like to see. We have contacted organizers who have been
involved in previous playground projects like the one at Poquonock Elementary
School. We have researched grant sources and have begun to file applications.
We have sought preliminary layouts and cost estimates from playground equipment
suppliers. We have approached the Superintendent of Schools and the Board of
Education for thier support. We requested technical assistance from the Town of
Windsor for determining a proper location for the playscape vis-a-vis layout and
drainage considerations. We have also begun outreach efforts to local civic
organizations and will be approaching local businesses. Much has already been
accomplished but we need the support of the entire Windsor community to reach
the goal of an inclusive new playground for the community.

The School's current equpment is nearing the end of its useful life and is
located in an area with poor drainage. After a good rain the playground can be
unusable for several days and during the winter months the area can be a virtual
mudbath. When the playscape is unusable the students spend their recess playing
in a parking lot.

Help us climb to our fundraising goal. Please
consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Clover Street PTA, a registered
501(c)(3) organization. Checks can be made out to "Clover Street PTA" and
mailed to 57 Clover Street, Windsor, CT 06095.

Closing
Headline

Thank you for your interest
in the Clover Street School playground project. If you have any questions,
suggestions, or comments then please contact the Playground Committee by sending
an e-mail to mcmaru@sbcglobal.net. An area we are specifically targeting
for assistance is learning about fundraising opportunities. Also please
forward this e-mail on to others who may have interest in the project.
Anyone can subscribe by sending an e-mail to mcmaru@sbcglobal.net or
clicking on the Join Our Mailing List button
above.

About 65 students in the Young Men's Leadership Club at Windsor High School got in to the spirit of Christmas giving over the last week as they conducted a toy drive.

Windsor High School Young Men's Leadership Group members with toys collected for Toys for Tots. Also pictured is their advisor, Vice Principal Hill, U.S. Marine Sergeant Morrison and secretary Joan Fisher.

The school-wide drive, which brought in 140 gifts, including stuffed animals, board games, action figures, footballs, basketballs and a bicycle will benefit the United States Marine Corps Toys for Tots program.

Staff Sgt. Sydney Morrison stopped by the school today to pick up several more boxes of toys than he had anticipated would be filled.

"It's higher than what we usually get, but anything is appreciated" said Morrison, who also visited Coventry High School today to pick up presents. "I challenged them and they really outdid themselves."

WHS Young Men's Leadership Group loads the humvee with toys. Student Todd Porter has the big smile!

Morrison said the toys collected will be taken to the Marine's reserve center in Plainville and distributed to participating agencies from there, probably over the weekend.

"But we might go all the way to Monday," he said.

The Young Men's Leadership Club at the school focuses on preparing young men, especially young men of color, for the future through active participation in community service and their school.

Terrell Hill, a vice principal at the school and creator of the club, said today that the goal was to collect 100 toys.

"It's amazing how many toys we got," Hill said as he wheeled the Huffy bike through the hallway. "It speaks to the caring in this building and the boys' efforts.

Honestly, that's the way I felt after a whirlwind, but exhaustive (exhausting?) tour of Windsor excavator and artist Lon Pelton's eccentric, very entertaining artwork last Wednesday. Bob McAllister, a long-time friend and neighbor, kindly volunteered as tour guide.

It began at McAllister's Windsor Avenue home, a stately Victorian pictured here and painstakingly restored by Pelton, the creator of the dinosaurs on Route 159 I blogged about earlier this month. Note the sculpture in the foreground. That's Pelton's handiwork too. McAllister told me Pelton secretly planted it on the lawn, one night, tricking him and his wife into leaving the house by having someone invite them out to dinner.

It's called "Victorian Winter Garden", a tip of the hat to McAllister's love of gardening. The depth of the friendship between McAllister and Pelton was immediately apparent. The two trade continuous tongue-in-cheek put-downs that began soon after I arrived with McAllister telling me Pelton "was nobody until I made him famous".McAllister did that, he said, by announcing Pelton was having a retrospective of his work. A local newspaper published the information, forcing Pelton to haul a selection of his work to McAllister's yard for the show.

A few of the pieces remain on McAllister's lawn, every detail of which he reverently pointed out. This stone arch with thinker-like figure is called "Through the Gates of Hell." The head - an old ventilation turret - turns when the wind blows causing the eyes in Thinker's head to spin.

We then jumped in McAllister's pick-up truck to see more work, including the one pictured here, a working fountain made using cow trough bowls on nearby Orchard Lane. Another in front of a house on the same street is called "Take Time to Smell the Flowers" and has a little container for rose water.

"That's the level of attention to detail," McAlliser said. "Just those little touches that he does."

The motherlode is Pelton's private collection - an eclectic assortment of creations scattered around the large parcel containing his house, workshop and a bone yard of old machine parts, engine innards and miscellaneous found objects.

Soon as we arrived, Pelton took over as guide. Before McAllister had even parked his truck, the two were trading barbs, most of which allude to McAllister's liberal leanings or Pelton's ramrod conservatism. Some people write letters to the editor, Pelton's way of weighing in on an issue it to create a piece of sculpture, I soon learned.

One next to a pen of goats depicted President Bill Clinton playing his saxophone and riding a Kosovo-bound missle. Next to that is one with Clinton in jail with a flower (as in Jennifer Flowers) hanging over his head. The one pictured here is called "Unlucky Strike". It's made out old VW Bug fenders. Pelton said he brought it to schools and used it as a anti-smoking teaching aid. I'm guessing it worked.

Here's Pelton standing beside one called "Violence Breeds Violence". The giant gun has a knife plunged into it and a down-turned barrel. It's a commentary on the death of Marcelina Delgado, a 7-year-old Hartford girl accidentally killed in gang related crossfire in 1994. Pelton's attempt to put the piece on the lawn of the state Capital got him arrested by Capitol police, he said.

A few of Pelton's creations are just for fun, including this serpent in a pond on his property. The pond is crammed with others including a sunken ship of state and a figure Pelton says is his wife fishing.

Here McAllister and Pelton survey the outdoor museum. Most of the work consist of the same clever configurations of old machine parts, engine works and curbside finds as the dinosaurs on Route 159. Paul Suto, a local painting contractor visiting Pelton the day of my visit, called Pelton a mechanical genius.

"This guy does everything from building house to excavating," he said."...One of the most talented guys I know."

Over the years, Pelton has donated pieces to more charities than anyone can count, McAllister said. He's really a pillar of Windsor society with an off-beat aesthetic, which may explain why he was picked to be grand marshal of this year's shad derby.

Molly Mosquito is one of Pelton's better-known public works. It's perched on a small island in a lagoon near downtown and is a commentary on the town's mosquito control efforts at the time. I could go on and on but I'll wrap it up here with a big "Thank You" to McAllister and Pelton. Every town should have a citizen artist like Pelton and if your's does, let me know.

My post on Windsor's roadside dinosaurs generated quite a few emails, including one from Bob McAllister, the town's self-proclaimed resident curmudgeon. Bob confirmed that local excavator Lon Pelton is, in fact, the creator (inventor?) behind this whimsical outdoor art and offered to give me a more comprehensive tour. I will be meeting with him this morning to see more Pelton's work - some I had heard about and some I hadn't - and possibly drop in on Pelton himself.

Here's a picture of one of the "pieces" we'll be viewing. (it's a mosquito in a pond behind Loomis Chaffee School) More when I get back from my tour.

Got a tip from Courant colleague Shawn Beals not long
ago about a road-side display of dinosaurs near the Windsor/Windsor Locks line.
The prehistoric creatures are made of junk, he told me, which made me want to
go check them out.

So late last week, I did, and what I found was way more entertaining than
expected.
Whoever made the display put lots of thought into it and had a great sense of
humor, judging from all the clever details.

The display sits on a grassy corner on the west side of
Route 159. It's about the size of a pocket park, a resemblance the
creator seems to have noticed because he gave it a name: DrasticPark.

I know it's a he because Mike Cavanaugh, a mail carrier who
happened by, gave me a little background. Lon Pelton, a
local excavator, made the sculptures, he told me, and two others elsewhere in Windsor.

That explains the random materials used to make the dinosaurs.I wouldn't call it junk exactly - more like recycled machine
parts from every source imaginable, some of which I recognized and others I
didn't.

The jaws of this guy "Tuoulango communisaurus" obviously
came from some sort of excavator. The head of the one below, "Alloliberalsuaurus"
looks like an old engine block to me and I'm thinking those eyes popping out of his head used to be wheels on some piece of office furniture.

This egg - a rock nestled in a coil of steel cable - is mysteriously named
O.B.E. The pile of fused metal below, sits directly beneath the tail of "Tuoulango". No label on that one, but easy enough to guess what it's supposed to be.

You have to stand right next to the rusted signs to read
them, but it's worth stopping to do so. I plan to call Lon Pelton to get more
details. I'll post them after we talk as well as pictures and stories behind the
other two pieces in town.

In the meantime, there must be somebody else out there familiar
with the dinosaurs and Pelton's other handiwork. If you're one of them, tell
us more. And if you have a story you want to share about the first time you saw
the beasts or what goes through your head every day when you pass them on the way to and from work, please do.

Sometimes a road race is not just a road race. On Sunday, September 21 the Union Street Tavern in Windsor is sponsoring a Tavern Trot to benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, which raises money for cancer research, and Mary's Place, a support home for grieving children and families in Windsor.

I love that they're calling it a "trot" -- it conjures an image of a leisurely pace and makes clear that non-serious runners and walkers are welcome. The first place winner can score a trophy, but the event is clearly more about people sharing each other's company and raising money for really important causes.

All of the owners of the tavern, at 20 Union Street, went to school with the parents of Alexandra "Alex" Scott, the 4 year-old cancer patient who in 2000 opened a lemonade stand to raise money to help her doctors at Connecticut Children's Medical Center find a cure for childhood cancer. Alex died four years later, but her legacy endures. To date, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, a non profit organization, has raised more than $20 million for childhood cancer research. That may sound like a lot of money, but it's clearly not enough to wipe out deadly cancers that afflict so many children. Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under 15 in the U.S., according to a fact sheet on the foundation's Web site.

U.S. Paralympic cyclist and winner of two medals Ron Williams, of Birmingham, Ala., rode through the city this afternoon to meet with employees at The Hartford, one of his team's major sponsors. His message was simple, but poignant: "Just do a mile tomorrow and two miles the next day. Soon you'll be doing 30 miles."

The point -- to begin slow and work your way up -- works for anything: writing a book, learning to walk after an accident, learning to speak after a stroke, riding a bike after losing a leg.

Williams was riding Friday with his buddy, former Paralympic two-time medalist Paul Martin from Natick, Mass. They paused for a moment outside The Hartford and I snapped this picture with Ron on the left and Paul on the right.

Sid Miller's grandson, Rob Miller, sent me this picture of Sid at Windsor's Memorial Day Parade.

The picture that I ran of him on my last blog entry showed him in the office of his appliance store in Bloomfield. This picture of him all dressed up in the sun is so much more fitting! Congratulations, Sid and thank you for risking your life for the rest of us.

When I was a kid, just a few of my peers were outward-thinking enough to raise money for charities. Today, kids of all ages are teaming up to help people who are less fortunate than themselves or to contribute to research for terrible diseases.

Just yesterday I learned about fifth-graders in Windsor who are holding a fashion show to raise money for the American Cancer Society and two Hall High, West Hartford, seniors, Alycia Chrosniak and Sarah Ineson, who are making their own clothes for a fashion show to raise money for a fund they created called the Hall High Suicide Prevention Fund. The girls were saddened by the suicides of two middle school students last month and by the suicide of a Hall High student two years ago, Alycia said. So they created the fund to pay for presentations and speakers for the school.

Sarah is sewing all of her own clothes for the show. She is making 11 or 12 dresses. And Alycia is making 8 dresses from a creative array of materials other than fabric -- except for the occassional slip to be worn under the dresses. For example, one of her dresses is made from red condoms to signify AIDS awareness and it will be worn over a slip. Another one -- a wedding dress -- is made of coffee filters and fabric softener sheets from the dryer. She sent me this picture of the beautiful dress:

Another one is made from papier mache, comics and bubble wrap. She sent this picture:

The Hall show is June 10 at Hall High School at 7 p.m. The cost of admission is $8 for students and $12 for adults.

The Windsor show is at John F. Kennedy Elementary School from 2 to 4 p.m. The cost of admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children.